The momentary, unreasonable agitation passed away from her, leaving her cold as a stone, and she knew what she had done. By a lightning flash her own heart stood revealed to her. How incredible it seemed, but she knew that it was true: all this dreary time, when the personal thought had seemed so far away from her, her greatest personal experience had been silently growing up--no gourd of a night, but a tree to last through the ages. She, who had been so strong for others, had failed miserably for herself. Love and happiness had come to her open-handed, and she had sent them away. Love and happiness? Oh, those will o' the wisps had danced ere this before her cheated sight. Love and happiness? Say rather, pity and a mild peace. It is not love that lets himself be so easily denied. Happiness? That was not for such as she; but peace, it would have come in time; now it was possible that it would never come at all. All the springs of her being had seemed for so long to be frozen at their source; now, in this one brief moment of exaltation, half-rapture, half-despair, the ice melted, and her heart was flooded with the stream. Covering her face with her hands, she knelt by his empty chair, and a great cry rose up from her soul:--the human cry for happiness--the woman's cry for love. [Illustration: Decoration] CHAPTER XXIV. AT LAST. _We sat when shadows darken, And let the shadows be; Each was a soul to hearken, Devoid of eyes to see. You came at dusk to find me; I knew you well enough.... Oh, Lights that dazzle and blind me-- It is no friend, but Love!_ A. MARY F. ROBINSON. _Hotel Prince de Galles, Cannes, April 27th._ My dearest Gerty,--You shall have a letter to-day, though it is more than you deserve. Why do you never write to me? Now that you have safely married your young people, you have positively no excuse. By the by, the poor innocent mater read the announcement of the wedding out loud at breakfast to-day.--Fred got crimson and choked in his coffee, and I had a silent fit of laughter. However, he is all right by now, playing tennis with a mature lady with yellow hair, whom he much affects, and whom papa scornfully denominates a "hotel hack." All this, let me tell you, is preliminary. I have a piece of news for you, but somehow it won't come out. Not that it is anything to be ashamed of. The fact is, Gerty, I am going the way of all flesh, and am about to be married. Believe me, it is the most sensible course for a woman to take. I hope you will follow my good example.